The Justice Department said on Tuesday that it would not seek the death penalty against three of Mexico’s most notorious drug lords, including Rafael Caro Quintero, who is accused of orchestrating the gruesome murder of an American drug enforcement agent.
Mr. Caro Quintero, a founder of the Sinaloa drug cartel; Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a former Juárez cartel leader; and Ismael Zambada García, once head of the Sinaloa cartel, all face long prison terms if convicted.
In separate filings to the judges overseeing each case, Joseph Nocella Jr., the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, wrote that the attorney general, Pam Bondi, “has authorized and directed this office not to seek the death penalty.”
The move by the Justice Department contradicts its stated interest in seeking the death penalty more frequently. In February, Ms. Bondi lifted a moratorium on executions that had started under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. In April, she announced that prosecutors would seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, who had been charged with assassinating a UnitedHealthcare executive in Manhattan in December.
President Trump has called for the death penalty for defendants convicted of murdering a law enforcement officer.
Because of extradition laws, foreign defendants are rarely sent to the United States if they might face death, and America’s use of capital punishment has been a significant point of contention with the Mexican government. Yet the circumstances of each man’s arrival in the United States had opened the possibility of the ultimate punishment.
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The post U.S. Says It Will Not Seek Death Penalty Against 3 Drug Cartel Bosses appeared first on New York Times.
